


The Codes in My Words

by brilligspoons



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Other, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-10
Updated: 2012-05-10
Packaged: 2017-11-05 02:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilligspoons/pseuds/brilligspoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are too many variables in the situation, so Phil tells Pepper about a cellist and a few weekends spent in an apartment on the Upper East Side and long, slow strolls through Central Park in the evening, and none of these things are technically untrue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Codes in My Words

There are too many variables in the situation, so Phil tells Pepper about a cellist and a few weekends spent in an apartment on the Upper East Side and long, slow strolls through Central Park in the evening, and none of these things are technically untrue. Phil makes a living keeping and protecting secrets, he's adept at disguising facts so perfectly that even those in the know aren't entirely sure what's reality and what's not. There's a method to it, a code that makes Phil think, in his more whimsical moments, of fairy tales - but for secret agents.

"I met someone," he says, which means _Natasha came home last night_. "She's a cellist with the New York Philharmonic, very talented from what little I know about music." _She sat me down in the chair across from the bed I special ordered for the three of us and let me watch while she took Clint apart piece by piece, and then put him back together again._

"She sounds wonderful," Pepper tells him, smiling at the warmth and affection in his voice.

He nods and stares at a spot on the wall behind Pepper's head. "She is." _They are._

"We should have coffee sometime. Not with Tony, he tends to make awful first impressions. Well, impressions in general. I've been working on keeping him occupied so he doesn't cause any more international incidents."

"And you have no idea how much I appreciate that," says Phil. They go back to sorting through the details of the new contract SHIELD is signing with Stark Industries, and by the time they've finished, it's full dark outside. Phil begs off Pepper's offer of supper by reminding her that she and Tony have barely seen each other this month. "Besides, I've a date I'm already an hour late for."

Pepper smiles. "Yes, the cellist," she says.

"Exactly that," replies Phil. _Not exactly that, no._

*

Fury talks to Phil about it once, and only once.

"You know what you're doing?" he asks.

"I always know what I'm doing, boss."

And that's that.

*

When Pepper asks how he met his cellist the next time they meet for business, this is the story he doesn't tell her:

Clint Barton is the target of Phil's first solo op. The kid's only just turned fourteen, but he's made a name for himself poaching tech from government property and selling it to whomever can pay, which by itself wouldn't warrant the kill order. _That_ he earned, according to the intel provided to Phil by the higher-ups, by getting into the habit of killing off the people who don't pay up. Phil recognizes some of the names from various government watch lists and wonders, to himself of course, why they want him dead - Barton is, in a way, doing them a favor. But an op is an op, and Phil's not a green agent anymore, so he goes and he pins Barton down in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, Iowa where he ends up dodging throwing knives, of all things.

All it takes is one look at Barton, and Phil finds himself unable to complete the mission. Instead, he cuffs the kid and shoves him into the backseat of the police-outfitted sedan he'd commandeered and starts driving to the nearest airfield.

"You're not gonna kill me," says Barton. In the rear view mirror, Phil sees him fussing unsuccessfully with the cuffs.

"Knives, kid?" Phil asks.

Barton explains (with a cocky grin that doesn't belong on a face that young) that throwing knives are fine when they're all he has on hand, but he prefers arrows and distance to the mess and intimacy of a knife.

"Seems a little extreme to be picking off your clientele just because they won't pay up," Phil says. "You lose money and future business that way."

"Oh, is that what they told you?" Barton's grin grows wider and brittle. "Nah, man, I know better than that. I just kill the ones who think they can take...liberties. With me."

Phil doesn't need him to clarify. He takes the cuffs off the kid when they reach the airfield and a few hours and a plane ride later leads him into Fury's office with a hand on one shoulder. He fully expects and is prepared, he thinks, to face the director's ire, but what he gets is a raised eyebrow and a head nod in Barton's direction. Phil is suddenly, overwhelmingly aware that the whole mission was a test for him, and possibly for Barton as well.

"You think you have this one figured out?" Fury asks. Phil feels Barton's muscles tense up ever so slightly under his hold.

"No, sir," Phil says, removing his hand from the kid's shoulder, "but given time, I might."

*

"You sound serious about her," Pepper says.

"I am," he replies. _I am._

*

The other story he doesn't tell Pepper goes something like this:

He doesn't actually see or hear from Barton again for five years. Fury smooths the councilors' ruffled feathers and whisks the kid away into some training program or other, which is SHIELD-speak for _forget you ever met this person or that he even existed at one point _. Barton seems like a resilient being, but the fact that he's fourteen and men and women twice his age and strength haven't made it back from so-called training programs remains. Phil doesn't like to consider the possibility that the kid might not come out the other side of this alive, but his concerns are irrelevant. Barton will live, or he'll die, and there's nothing Phil can do to affect it one way or the other.__

Phil expects to be surprised when his doorbell rings in the wee hours of the morning and he finds an taller, older, more worn Barton leaning forward against the post. But there's no shock - just sudden awareness that the one mark he decided not to kill is at his apartment and it's 3am and Phil couldn't be fucked to find his pants before answering the door.

"Hello," he says.

"Hey," replies Barton. "Can I - I need - that is, Fury told me your couch is free."

"Of -" Phil tells him, but Barton immediately holds up a hand to stop him from finishing his sentence.

"For two," he says, and Barton steps back from the post and tugs a mere wisp of a girl from behind him. She's got grime and mud streaked across her cheeks, her red hair is matted and in desperate need of a good scrubbing, and her eyes are hard and piercing. Phil stares at her in silence for a moment, then looks over to Barton, who glowers at him. "She's with me."

Phil considers this for a split second. He gives himself a mental shrug and turns back to the girl. "You hungry? I made risotto earlier."

"I could eat," she says with a thick accent. "What is risotto?"

*

"Where are you taking her for dinner tonight?"

Phil thinks of the kitchen in his New York apartment, the one he rarely gets to use these days; the plans they made to cook dinner and how Natasha beat Clint in a wrestling match just so she could decide which movie they're going to watch afterward; how Clint had stumbled into the shower with him this morning and promised him tonight was his, that he was theirs to hold and love and kiss and -

"I think we'll stay in tonight," Phil says. "I've been too busy to cook much lately." _Natasha's making risotto._ "It'll be nice."

Pepper's smile, as always, lights up the room. "You're one in a million," she says.

"That's what they tell me," he replies.

*

Fury asks him if he knows what he's doing, and truthfully, Phil's not entirely sure he has a handle on the situation. There are nights, after Clint and Natasha have exhausted each other and twisted their limbs around him, when Phil feels like he's the lowest of the low, keeping them to himself like this, when it's all he can do not to leap out of bed and disappear as best he can. He's not stupid enough to think all three of them will last together this way forever, or that they won't wake up one morning to find orders for them to kill each other on sight. That's how their lives work, that's how things are, and Phil doesn't see that ending any time soon.

But almost as quickly as they appear, the nagging doubts and fears melt away. Natasha kicks his shins in her sleep, and Clint drools on Phil's pillow because his unconscious self won't stay on his side of the bed, and Phil finally settles and allows sleep to overtake him.


End file.
